Okay, I admit it: I am a bibliophile, a passionate lover of books, a ?bookaholic" as family and friends would say.

Every time I look at the vast number of books on my shelves I see that many of my antique books have such nice front and back covers. Textures that have been made by time and use. Individual surfaces that can hardly be achieved by design. So I said to myself: ?Wait a minute. These surfaces look so nicely worn out by the loving touches of generations of readers. Why not use them for design purposes. They are just perfect to add a little individual story to any kind of design".

So I went through the books which mostly date back to the end of the 19th century and made a selection. I started scanning my treasures and retouching the results. And here it is: my first collection of used-look backgrounds. And there certainly will be more to comeĦ­ It takes quite a while to scan the books, but it is worth the effort. I scan every surface in several steps to achieve real physical resolutions: 72 ppi for reviews, 300 ppi and 600 ppi.

With three different physical resolutions you have all the options to work with best quality scans without quality loss.

- What will I do with the surfaces?"

Use those real vintage book covers and back titles as backgrounds for hand letterings, posters, gift wrapping paper, stationary, business cards, websites and eBooks. Any kind of design that needs a little touch of vintage will do nicely with these backgrounds.

What you get.

35 different nicely worn out vintage / used-look surfaces.

Each comes in three resolutions: 72, 300 and 600 ppi as jpg-files. The file sizes in reference to the antique books vary from smaller than A5 to about A4.

Get a Bonus: I included one of my hand-drawn crayon structures to add a little extra grit. I created the product title with this surface. You get an A3 jpg-file in a resolution of 1200 ppi (!).

Just drag and drop it in Photoshop on one of the vintage surfaces, adjust size and layer effect and enjoy the extra vintage look :-)

Have fun trying, rearranging and playing with these vintage surfaces. I would love to see your results :-)

The patterns shown are not included. They are meant to inspire you to create your own combinations of vintage surfaces and the bonus structure.